Game Face
by KuriQuinn
Summary: To Tala Ivanov, the world is but a stage for the best of actors and liars. A companion piece to Drowning in the Clouds and Burning in the Sea.


_**Game Face**_

**Author**: KuriQuinn

**Title**: Game Face

**Fandom**: Beyblade

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Beyblade, but if I did I'd probably be rich and still reading fanfiction

**Pairing**: None in this one…hints, but really none.

**Rating**: PG-13 for language

**Summary**: Another companion piece to Drowning in the Clouds and Burning in the Sea. To Tala Ivanov, the world is but a stage for the best of actors and liars.

**Takes Place:** Through-out Drowning in the Clouds and the beginning of Burning in the Sea

**Dedication:** This fic is dedicated to Rational Lunacy, who originally moved me to write this fic and then proceeded to help me fine-tune it so that it came out right. Thanks a bunch, I couldn't have done it without you. I hope, in the end, it came out to your liking.

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There's something beautiful about running a convincing bluff. To have all of those self-satisfied morons staring at you gleefully, completely high on themselves and their expectations and feel that rush of fear that you might be found out. To then detect in their eyes that tinge of unease and panic that it might be you that's the one on top of the game, even if all you're actually holding is a five-four-three-deuce-ace hand. To have them slam down their cards and fold, thinking you've beaten them and then to see their faces when they realize you just completely bullshitted your way to the top. 

Life is exactly like the game only there's more to play with then lacquered cards and there are more ABC players than you know what to do with. Navigating through them isn't what you'd call a piece of cake.

Luckily for me, I've mastered the art bluffing so that not even the people closest to me can see past. Not to brag, but I am the best player in the game. I play by the rules and cheat in a way that it's just within the rules and no one can touch me. Because seriously, I've always had more to lose than anyone else. Maybe that's why I'm the best.

When people look at me, they see a smooth talking, devilishly handsome teenager that's holding all of the cards – secure, slick, completely in control of every situation. And what can I say? If that's what they see, that's what I am. I'm not going to change their opinion, even if it is the wrong one.

One thing about being able to bluff means that you need to know when you have more of a chance of getting your way and when you don't. Probability is a big factor in the entire image. You have to know when to drive the point home and when to back off admirably and let the other guy think you've won. When asking my grandfather for favors, for example, it's best to take that approach. I don't want him thinking that I need him and that I'm leeching off of him, but I do want him thinking that I'm just a shrewd business type and that the things I ask for are beyond my control. Mostly they are.

I need to know, for example, when's the right time to ask a girl out, when to be convincingly suave and sweet, or just cool. And then remorseful and pitiful when she decides she doesn't want to put out. The injured party routine usually guilts her into it and it's another win for Tala Ivanov.

Am I a bastard? Pretty much, but the way I see it, I'm not killing anyone, I'm not a racist and I don't support the war. I could be doing so many other things that are so much worse, what's the point of sweating the small stuff? Life's too short for you to fuck around with the small stuff, because by the time you're at the end of it, you wonder what the hell you wasted your youth on.

You don't want to look back and see that you didn't take what life gave you and make the most of it. You don't want to look back and see that when your mom left that all you did was cry about it while your useless father sat by drinking – you want to look back and see that you sucked it up and just went on as though nothing had happened – if the bitch wanted to leave, who are you to have stopped her?

You don't want to look back and see that you gave up when your rich grandfather decided it was too much trouble for him to pay your school expenses and after-school help – you want to see that you got odd jobs around the latch-key apartments and put it in savings, worked your ass off for scholarships and help from teachers and that odd best friend who you promised to pay back when you get the money. Which you have. And by the time you did, you had enough money for your school fees and even a set of wheels.

You don't want to look back and think you were abandoned when your father croaked and left you in the care of his latest girlfriend who's barely legal and who treated you like a snotty younger sibling – you want to look back and think that you're a strong individual that can take care of yourself even if Angela was technically your guardian even though she couldn't keep a steady job and you ended up practically living at your best friend's house just so it was easier for her to pay the rent every month.

Every catch I've made in my seventeen-and-three-month life has helped me manufacture and perfect the art of conning people into believing what they see about me. What does the school need to know that the most that I see my grandfather is barely once a month – and that's because it's me that goes to speak with him, acting as though I've been maltreated and that his blood is being handled like gutter-slime at school. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. The opportune moment to play on his pride is ever-changing. But the school doesn't know that – and if they ever bother to call him, like they did that one time when I was a kid, he can bluff pretty well too. Although he calls it manipulation. Either way. His sense of pride is the only thing that keeps me from being called on.

Kai's another reason I'm so good at what I do. I think someone said once that having influential friends is as important as having someone push you out of a moving plane and then catch you – and if someone didn't say that, I just did. He's always been the one person that nine-times-out-of-ten could call my bluff – or back it up, depending on what kind of mood he's in. We've been what I guess you'd call friends since we were in pre-school – before my mom left, my gramps sold me out and my dad kicked the bucket of course – because our grandfathers were old cronies. We got along well because we both gave each other what we needed. I provided him with not having to make an effort in having a friend and he got to be my back-up when there was a spot of trouble I needed to get out of. Before we knew it – wham – instant friends.

For a long while Kai was all I had – for some reason he took pity on a chump like me and decided to be there when I needed him, long before I turned into the charming specimen I am today. When I was down and my drunk of a father was on welfare, I didn't even have to ask the question. I was at Kai's house more than I was at home – in fact, I pretty much grew up with him and Taryn. If it weren't for him talking to his grandfather, mine never would have given me the time of day.

Over the course of elementary school I was that one kid that you see in the movies that seems to be on top of it all. Living around Kai I learned the value of street smarts. I wasn't smart when it came to books, so I got other people to do my homework. I couldn't pay them, but I did make arrangements that I would take the fall for certain things or do their chores and the like.

Kai didn't attend the same elementary school as I did, being the son of the former Russian ambassador and all. But we remained friends. I couldn't pull my calculated schemes and careful bargains on him and truthfully, he was my oldest friend, I wasn't going to. Besides, I already used his reputation to strike fear in the hearts of the bullies, I wasn't going to push my luck.

I was, however, going to make a point of being there when his grandfather was being a particularly big asshole, most times about his brother. To my credit (and possibly why he liked me more than any of those prissy all-boy-school boys he went to elementary with), I couldn't stand his older brother any more than he could. Vaughn's always had a sort of charm that people were immediately drawn to – in retrospect, I think it's because Vaughn and I are so much alike that I never liked him – which Kai couldn't stand. And when he needed to vent his anger, even if that meant physically hitting me, I was there. And I could use careful humor to come up with outrageous plans of getting rid of Vaughn that actually had Kai cracking a smile.

Making Kai smile is a big deal. Not smirk, because he does that all the time – an actual smile. It's like pulling teeth, but as far as I knew, I was the only one able to do it.

Most kids say that when they begin high-school it's this terrifying ordeal of new classes, new people and a bunch of teachers that really couldn't care less about how you do in class as long as you don't bug them and they get paid. I guess I would agree with that, except for the fact that my high school experience started off pretty easily. All I did was show up and I ran into Bryan and Ozuma.

Bryan's an only child with a doctor and a mathematician as parents – they've always expected him to be perfect, studious and a brain child. Which he is. He's a goddamned genius, but is shy as hell. Since I've known him I think the most talking he's ever done was answer questions in class. And those are the shortest sentences you will ever hear. Hanging with Bryan's kept my grades passable, and I'm not one of those morons that try to get him to talk. So it's a pretty good deal. Oz is another help – he's been very beneficial to my little group in that he's the best distraction you can hope to have. He doesn't mind taking to fall for anything and acts loud and brash so people will notice him. I guess that's because he's the middle child out of three brothers and wants to remind everyone that yes, he's still here, thank you very much.

And of course, once Kai got himself kicked out of that private school his grandfather placed him in, the group was complete. It was his reputation that kept us untouchable – the lingering threat in back of the player holding the cards. People know that it's possibly there behind us, but they don't know if we'll use it against them or not. I could be bluffing when I say to someone that if they don't want business with Kai's and my grandfather they should walk away – or I might not. In most cases I am, but like I said. People don't need to know that.

So there we were. Three months into high school and already on top of everything. Kai, the one with the reputation, Bryan the one with the brains, Oz the one with the balls and me – I'm the one that tells them when everything's all-in. It's a pretty good combination – in poker you need to know all about good combinations, just like you do in life – and as I've said before, I'm the best at orchestrating these kinds of things. Let's keep this straight: I'm the one that pulls the strings.

I was pretty sure that we could get through high school just like that – most people swap friends midway through their first year, but the four of us actually need each other or we're screwed. It's not that we're the best of friends, really, except for myself and Kai, but if tomorrow we decided to just let things fall, all four of us would be skinned alive. My careful planning allowed us to do everything we wanted, but always within the rules so we could never get into trouble. And even though we goofed around most of our career in high school, they couldn't tell us we weren't doing well when we had Bryan coaching us through school.

Of course life is supposed to teach you lessons and you'd think I would have learned mine long ago – that I can't let my guard down and that everything's always work. Before I fell too deeply into the trap that I had created, I was thankfully given a nice reminder to keep alert.

When the walking disaster known as Chaya Mizuhara unceremoniously dropped into our lives in our junior year, like the others, I barely reacted. Why should I care that some no-name freshman thought she was such a big thing that she could challenge us? I figured she'd last a day, maybe two before we put her in her place – in fact, I didn't have nearly as big of a problem with her as Kai had. Then again, he's spoiled and never was used to having someone speak back to him – I guess at the time I thought maybe it would be good for him to have a little introduction to the real world where your grandfather doesn't dictate the lives of your enemies.

It took me a week to realize what we were actually up against, and by that time she'd already established herself (whether knowingly or not) as someone that wasn't going to bend to us. This I couldn't have.

Plotting and actually acting to destroy someone's life is a hard, time-consuming thing to do – especially when the person in question knows all about your attempts and has this nasty affinity to getting there before you so that your plans backfire. In the beginning, I had my aces cracked – all of my plans, preparations and attempts were countered just as easily as though I was pitting myself against myself. I thought in the beginning that Chaya Mizuhara was a mastermind.

It took me a while to realize, she really wasn't. Yes, she is a smart person, but she's more accidentally smart. She's not calculating, doesn't wait for the opportune moment and can't read what the other players intend to do way I can. With her, it's spur of the moment – instincts instead of brains, I guess you could say. Which is why she gets in trouble and I don't. Of course, she always gets out of the trouble again and people are done with her. With me, even though I'm never really in trouble, people never know when I'm finished or if I'm still calling the shots, upping the ante the way I find it suitable.

Stupid.

I'm always calling the shots, remember? I'm the slow play king.

Or I was.

Since she showed up my little gang has been floundering. And the weak link is, surprise-surprise, Kai. I never would have thought it possible – the guy was raised in house where his grandfather is Stalin and he, Vaughn and Taryn are supposed to play his cult of personality. He's grown up doing as his grandfather says, taking orders and marching if you want to use that analogy. And then he finally broke through that bullshit and since he was expelled from that other school, has had his own mind, his own way of doing things and has been a relatively strong person. Not even Taryn has done as much as he has, though she is much more fun to watch and hear about then Kai. Then again, Taryn's a girl. There are two very important reasons why she's more fun…

However, I digress – suddenly Kai's stopped being calm and collected and relying on his grandfather's constant protection – if anything, he's ruining his chances with all of the fights and brawls he's gotten involved in with. Selfish bastard that he is, he fails to see the priorities of the gang hang high above his own. If the threat of his grandfather stops working, we no longer have a reputation to protect us and calling my bluff will be much easier. And down goes my little hierarchy.

That's my dilemma. It has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I actually saw Kai smile at her when she calmly fires combacks at him because she's "oh so clever". There's no way that it relates back to me possibly losing my best friend to some chick. He's had plenty of girlfriends – granted, he never actually talked to any of them – but that's besides the point. I also couldn't care less that she somehow manages to turn my words back on me, be they blackmail or bluff.

This Mizuhara bird is quite possible what's going to break apart the foundation I worked my ass off to create. I can't let that happen. After I leave, I don't really give a damn about this stupid school, but graduation is nine months away and until then, the reputation of the four of us has to be kept up. Even if that means I have to call in a favor from my grandfather – after all, I'm sure Voltaire would be amazed at how much crap Kai is putting up with from this nobody blond…it's quite unfitting of a gentleman of such "noble" lineage, as the old coot would say.

If this is the hand I've been dealt, it's my job to rake everything up and go for some careful planning and combinations, even if it means being a cheating dealer for a while or angling a few times.

The cards are on the table and the stakes are high. To be called on this bluff might mean a whole lot more than trouble for me.

* * *

Fin 

I'm not too sure about it – what do you think?

Kuriness

:;cough:; Of Marauders and Martyrs ;:cough;:


End file.
